Test Cases

compass supports test cases for two main MPAS dynamical cores, Ocean core (MPAS-Ocean) and Landice core (MALI). Test cases are grouped under these two MPAS cores and then into “test groups”, which are groups of test cases that have some common purpose or concept. Land-ice test groups include “idealized” setups like dome and hydro_radial as well as “realistic” domains as in greenland. The same is true for the ocean, with “idealized” test groups like baroclinic_channel and ziso, and a “realistic” test group in global_ocean.

Idealized test groups typically use analytic functions to define their topography, initial conditions and forcing data (i.e. boundary conditions), whereas realistic test groups most often use data files for all for these.

compass test cases are made up of one or more steps. These are the smallest units of work in compass. You can run an individual step on its own if you like. Currently, the steps in a test case run in sequence but there are plans to allow steps that don’t depend on one another to run in parallel in the future. Also, there is no requirement that all steps defined in a test case must run when that test case is run. Some steps may be disabled depending on config options (see Config Files) that you choose. Other steps, such as plotting or other forms of analysis, may be intended for you to run them manually if you want to see the plots.

In compass, test cases are identified by their subdirectory relative to a base work directory that you choose during compass setup. For example, the default test case from the baroclinic_channel configuration at 10-km resolution is identified as:

ocean/baroclinic_channel/10km/default

When you list test cases:

compass list

you will see these relative paths.